Wallace's final novel to get a public reading

It is in bad taste to point out that American novelist David Foster Wallacekilled himself while writing a book about the IRS - in the eighth year of this endeavor, to be exact.

Friday is the publication date of Wallace's unfinished final novel, "The Pale King," which is set in an IRS processing center in Illinois in the 1980s. Running over 1,000 pages and 150 chapters before editing, the mock memoir is not entirely new thematic territory for Wallace: It tells the story of a bunch of entry-level male drones and the soul-crushing boredom they face in a bureaucratic environment that fosters little creativity, individuality, happiness or hope.

To celebrate Wallace's talents and the publication of "The Pale King," City Arts & Lectures is offering a Word for Word reading of the novel at 8 p.m. Monday at the Herbst Theatre.

The idea for the reading came from City Arts & Lectures founder Sydney Goldstein, who likes a good challenge. Indeed, the assignment, said Word for Word Artistic Director JoAnne Winter, has been daunting. "The novel is massive, cryptic, unfinished," Winter explained. "How do you choose selections and assign them to readers? ... Some of the sentences are more than 200 words long."

Word for Word has been producing staged readings of classic and contemporary fiction since 1993, usually of complete short stories and full book chapters. It has never had to edit something like "The Pale King" for the stage. Winter and her colleagues have been mulling story lines and recurring themes for weeks to come up with a narrative that their actors can understandably perform.

After much analytical agony (the kind Foster would like), they have created an edited version of 19 pages from the novel in which the IRS employees discuss topics ranging from the value of work and family to civic duty and democracy and the necessity of taxation.

"It's a really great investigation into how people depend on and invest in society," Winter said. The excerpt will be read by actors Warren David Keith, Nicholas Pelczar and Stephen Pawley, as well as by Winter. Tickets are $21 and can be purchased at cityboxoffice.com. Copies of "The Pale King" will be available for purchase at the event.

Arts on your plate

Clear Channel may be an unlikely savior of state arts, since for the past few decades the radio broadcasting, concert promotion and advertising company has helped to homogenize the popular music airwaves by buying up a good chunk of FM, AM and shortwave radio stations. But the company's local digital billboard division, Clear Channel Outdoor California, announced recently that it has joined the California Arts Councilto support the Million Plates Campaign for the Arts, which is designed to raise more than $40 million annually for California's art programs and organizations through sales of license plates with images from artists.

Currently, proceeds from sales of the first California arts license plate, designed by Wayne Thiebaudin 1994, account for two-thirds of the state's public arts funding. As part of the campaign, Clear Channel Outdoor will develop and donate 100 digital signs throughout the state to publicize the license plate arts program.

Malissa Shriver, chair of the California Arts Council (and wife of Santa Monica Mayor Bobby Shriver), points out that sales of license plates for 1 million vehicles is not chump change.

"There are more than 32 million registered vehicles in California," Shriver said. "If just 1 million of those vehicles had arts plates, it would generate $40 million a year to support the arts and move our state from dead last in per-capita public arts funding to near the top - where we belong."

Plates cost $50 with a $40 annual renewal fee and can be purchased at artsplate.org.

Striking against hunger

"Stomp," which returns to the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts tonight through Sunday, is collaborating with Second Harvest Food Bank in San Jose on a campaign to bring attention to hunger and homelessness. Audiences are urged to "stomp out hunger" by entering the code word "hunger" when ordering tickets to the show; a $5 donation will be made to Second Harvest Food Bank.

Tickets to "Stomp" are $20-$69 and may be purchased by calling (408) 792-4111 or going to www.sjtix.com.